Been a long time since I posted. So I thought I might explore time itself as a concept.

The turning of the earth, the changing of the season, the wrinkling of the skin and greying of the hair. We talk of Father Time, of Chronos and chronology. But what really is time? Is it a living, breathing being? No. Is it a form of energy? No. Can we perceive it other than by the position of the planets in relation to the earth’s rotation? Not in any instant manner. Does it even really exist?

When we say I didn’t or don’t have time, yes we do. What we really mean is that during the spell in which I am awake and able to complete tasks of any nature, I may not be or was not able to also complete the task of which you are talking. Time is a concept in the physical mind of the human being.

Have you ever seen an elephant look at its watch and say “oh, time for a bit of grazing before I see the giraffes this evening.” Probably not. An elephant notices the changes in the atmosphere, the difference in the light, but doesn’t seek to explain it in any more detail than is necessary. Elephants are vastly intelligent, self-aware and emotional beings. They could easily have developed the concept of time, but see fit not to. Elephants have specific places where, if they are able to, they go to end their days. They are clearly able to appreciate beginnings and endings. A respect of age and seniority are also among their understandings, but they don’t ascribe hours and minutes to anything.

So why does the elephant ignore the minutiae of measurement in relation to passing days? The answer – the elephant has nothing to gain by it. Time and motion is a strictly human concept that makes no sense to any other creature on earth. Yes, a dog learns that when the light changes to a certain level, or perhaps when hunger reaches a particular point, the humans will be home again. But it has to learn that from observation of human behaviour over many changes in the light. Were you to ask the dog how many minutes or seconds had passed, what would it say? It would shrug and say it really wasn’t concerned about how many wags of a tail it took but that now it was ready for dinner, thank you.

Having looked at it from the perspective of different species, does it still make sense to refer to time? Why do we insist on putting that pressure on ourselves? That society would cease to function is not really a valid argument. Were we to stop putting measurements against the turning of the earth, society would still function, just differently. It would be less stressful. We’d get paid by the quantity, quality or size of the body of work we had produced. Viewed like that, is time a socialist concept then, forcing all to accept the same payment regardless of merit? Was the concept invented by someone who worked for longer but produced work of a lesser quantity or quality than the next person? Maybe that’s it.

Surely everyone has experienced the phenomenon where one day takes longer than the next identical day to pass. Those days where you get lots done but upon consulting the clock, it has barely ticked round at all. Disappointing sometimes, edifying at others. If we were paid by the amount we achieved, those days would be very lucrative. Paid by the hour, however, it hardly seems fair.

Time itself though, not that it has a self. If the past exists, why can we visit it only in memory and recorded memory of others? We know innately that only the present truly exists. Look at this way: you are beside a fresh-flowing stream and want a glass of water from it but somebody insists it must be a glass from half an hour ago. Can you obtain that? Maybe, if you were to somehow travel far enough before the water did so that the water of half an hour ago from where you were is where you are now. But then they change their mind and want it from now. Where do you stand, having chased the stream so that now for the other person is not the same as now for you? And could you know the water of now from there when it reached you, because the water from now where they are is tumbling towards you but it’s not delineated and might not be the same water as they were looking at. In that light, can we really ever say ‘at precisely the same time’? Can we ever experience the exact same moment as anyone else? No. Time is a matter of perception, yet we seek to measure it. But to what end?

We say ‘I love you to the end of time’. To the end of what time – yours, mine or the universe’s? News flash: time itself can never end. Only those who seek to measure it, and we only do that because we have a physical human brain conditioned to do so.

So if the past only exists in memory, and yes the earth itself provides a record so has a memory of sorts, what of the future? Everyone has at some point said “in future I will do things differently.” The future, though, does not exist except in imagination and predictive measurement. It can’t exist because it has not yet reached our perception. The water of half an hour from now, in that analogical stream, is still miles away and beyond your reach. It’s even less available than the water of half an hour ago.

The water of now is the only water on which you can have any effect. Ever. You can take steps to prevent the water of the future becoming something you do not want, but only by acting in the now, although it might be a now that has yet to occur. But when someone says do it now, that now has already gone, swallowed up by their statement. Now also doesn’t really exist. By the time you perceive now, even say that one syllable, it’s already too late!

Time then, although we think we understand it, does not really exist. Chronology exists, the turning of the earth, the changing of the season, the wrinkling of the skin and greying of the hair exist. But not one of them is time. They are simply side effects of the continual flow of the stream of life. A constantly changing, ever mutable thing that we seek to measure to make us feel better; or sometimes worse – nobody wants to grow old! We seek to grow older for the sheer fact that it means continuing survival, but not to grow old.

So, now comes the question that reaches to the heart of it. Do we seek to measure time, a concept of our own invention, because it is proof of that continuing survival? I think therein lies the answer that needs no further words from me.

Remembrance Sunday is upon us and like many the world over, I shall observe a moment’s silence to pay my respects to all those who fought and died or fought and were forever changed to preserve a way of life.

But I see an argument springing up over the colour of the poppy we should take as our symbol on this day. Some say we should abandon the red and instead wear white as a sign of peace. I think that misses the point entirely.

On Remembrance Sunday and every day of the year besides, we should take care to remember the horror of war, the death and pointless waste of life it brings. The red poppy was chosen because it grew in the face and in the place of such tragic bloodshed. If we do not take the time to remember the violence, what meaning has observing peace on this day?

I will not abandon this symbol of hope born out of hatred, of life born out of so much heinous bloodshed. Remembrance Sunday is about finding that place in our hearts where all those fallen ancestors and contemporaries now reside. It is about carrying that forward and seeing that we still have not learned the lesson that Flanders’ fields tried to give – that in the face of horror great beauty can emerge.

The beauty of courage, of sacrifice, of sheer humanity at its most fragile and vulnerable point should never be forgotten. The red poppy is not a symbol of war or of violence. It is a symbol of the utmost, laid-bare reality of being human and it needs to stand out, to be worn with pride and honour. We owe that to the fallen, past, present and future. We owe it to them to show as much of that courage and humanity in life as they did in death.

While there is still a fight of any sort, anywhere, we need that symbol to remind us of what we must never allow to happen again. We must never allow fields be so ploughed by bombs and so nourished with blood that they flourish with aptly blood-red blooms again. When there is nothing left in this world that places a single thing under threat, then we can wear a white poppy alongside the red. The sacrifice made to bring about peace must always take equal if not greater precedence to the result in the minds of all humanity.

It’s red for a reason. Remember that whilst remembering how lucky we are that so many laid down their lives in the hope of a better world to come. Bow your head at 11am today and again tomorrow and whisper your gratitude for that lasting memory of hope against hope.

You know, I have never been so scared for my country in my life (and I’m not as young as I look!). The government has turned on the sick and disabled and the media have got right behind that, demonising people who are by no fault of their own unable to comply with the rigors of the traditional working life.

I had a run in with a taxi driver – those well-known armchair politicians – who was driving me to the hospital for the latest in a long list of appointments. He said I could work if I wanted to. I said live a few months in my life and see whether you could keep working to the pattern set out by someone else while your body is demanding rest. I asked him if he thought I’d walked away from a very good salary because it seemed like a good idea to live on the breadline instead. He couldn’t answer me on that but stopped judging me.

And it occurs to me that there must be many sick and disabled persons in the same situation as me; still sharp of mind, quick of wit, able to live a useful and contributory life if only the flexibility were available. I didn’t want to stop earning and I’m sure they didn’t either. I tried returning and within four months was destroyed because I had to stick to a rigid and inflexible pattern. That could have so easily been different.

With the technology available and the kind of jobs that can be done any time during the day, why is it that those who can prove a genuine need are not able to work as their situation allows? The hours in the day when I am at my best vary from day to day. On this reasonably bright Saturday, I was awake and about early and could be completing a seven hour day of useful work at this moment. Tomorrow I might not be fully functional until afternoon, but I’d be able to do another seven hours then.

Show me the employer who will allow that sort of pattern. Show me the employer who will let me shuffle down the stairs when my situation allows, sit down at my laptop and just work, resting when I need to, but getting the job done. They don’t exist or if they do they are few and far between.

And why is that? Is it because a manager needs to be looking over your shoulder regardless of whether the work is getting done? That’s a little paranoid of the employer. Is it because they’re afraid that people will see that it can work and start asking for greater flexibility? I said if a genuine need is proven. Or is it because there is a tradition that says you must be incapable of doing your job, even under circumstances that empower you to do so? Now we’re getting closer to the mark.

There are many kinds of work where it doesn’t matter which hours in the day you work as long as you do work. You’re hardly likely to see a person with a disability scaling a ladder to mend a roof or rescue people from a burning building I grant you. But crunching data, writing articles, designing all manner of things from websites to automobiles – that can be done at any time within a 24 hour period. Why is that still not recognised?

So many talented people are lost to the working world because there simply isn’t scope to incorporate them. How closed-minded does that make the world? How rigid and thereby brittle? One day, business might realise that people with disadvantages are all the more driven to be the best they can be and give their all to everything they do. So they might not be able to attend meetings. Ever heard of video conferencing? The telephone?

And what I say to governments making it impossible for the disadvantaged to do anything with their lives, if you address employers and maybe even incentivise trying a new flexible approach as described above, you might find a lot fewer people are forced to walk away from a full time working life before it kills them. You might even find a massive boost to the nation’s productivity because of the talent and determination injected back into business.

If you agree, whether partially or fully, share this blog. Give people some food for thought on what could really be done to alleviate both the suffering being endured by the sick and disabled right now and the burden the government are so sure is to blame for everything that’s wrong with this country. Open some eyes and some minds and we might just start to see improvement.

Attitudes need to change. The traditional methods are not working and therefore nor are many people who could be. But we need to talk about it, theorise, explore and pioneer or nothing will get better.

This is just the very tip of an idea. A dream. And if enough people dream that dream, there just might be a chance of making it real. Is that too crazy?

Britain has a heat-wave. To me, sunshine is fantastic news. I fill up a massive jug with water, apply lots of sun-screen and go outside to get the benefit of the glorious, health-giving rays. Eventually the sun moves round and no longer falls on my property so I move indoors. This evening, unlike most other evenings, I decided to put BBC News 24 on as background noise while I read, write, do my usual quiet activities.

This is not the hottest summer we’ve ever had. I was born at the peak of one hotter than this. That was in 1977 and people were rather warm but quite appreciative of a long, hot summer. I grew up through many (many) more of them. Every year I sat exams in blistering heat where we couldn’t open the windows because half of the pupils would collapse with dreaded hayfever and the other half would run out screaming because a wasp had flown in.

Summers didn’t really change, but once you get into the working world, you tend not to get as much time to notice. Sometimes, we’d have a year where we had a week of sun around Easter and then a fairly cool and rainy season to follow. The hot summers always returned.

For three years, we’ve had only cool, rainy summers and I’ve kept saying the sun will be back. Now that it is, though, it seems people have forgotten how to get on and enjoy a real summer. News 24 is telling me every half hour or so that a warning has been issued about the dangers of the hot weather. There have been, according to one health care worry-ward, high numbers of lost toes through people gardening in flip-flops.

This frightens me. Not because I may succumb to the heat. No. It frightens me because it has taken only three years for almost an entire nation to forget the sun exists and can get quite hot in this country. Has the nanny state really made people so reliant on the media to know what to do that they can’t remember to drink water, dress appropriately and maybe, I don’t know, open a window? Have people really become that stupid?

The news is creating a panic out of it just as they do with heavy (more than an inch) snowfall. Yes, it’s very warm. Nobody needs to cool down that desperately though that they need leap into rivers despite warning signs about undertow. Is it just that they really are too stupid to know any better? I wish I could believe the contrary.

In decades, centuries, millennia past, when the news reported news and didn’t dish out advice, people got on and dealt with the heat by means of drinking water, staying out of the sun, wearing wide-brimmed hats to keep the sun from making hard-boiled brain for breakfast and at the same time shielding eyes reducing, among other things, the risk of removing one’s own toes because one could bloody well see what one was doing.

I’d like to think that one day while I slept particularly deeply, aliens came and attacked Britain with a lobotomising beam leaving my fellow countrymen with the ability to do only what they were expressly told to do by the voices from the BBC. But what I’d like to think is seldom the case and once again that is true. People have just lost what little common sense they once had, it would seem.

Me? I’m enjoying it while it lasts, just like I’ve always done. This year I’ve discovered a sun-screen that actually works for me and my milk-white skin is now a healthy golden brown. My vitamin D levels are at an all time high because I’m not burning to a crisp when I step outside. But I’m also waiting to hear reports, after the hot weather has passed, of people suffering dehydration because no-one told them they had to drink water even when the skies are cloudy and grey. Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun? Well, so do I, an Englishwoman, but I take a bag of common sense with me, just to be on the safe side.

Nothing at all to with TV shows of the same name or indeed astrophysics, fascinating though it is. I need to make a big bang (on paper) and know nothing of the theory.

For some time I’ve had an idea for a story largely inspired by my Granddad. I wrote a quick thought down when it first came to me, intending to come back to it when other projects were complete. It’s one of those ideas though that won’t be quiet and since late yesterday has been taking shape.

Initially I’m writing it as a short story but can see that I’ll come back to it and take it much further. It has the scope to cross decades and continents and it would be a shame to leave it at just a handful of pages. There is one small problem possibly leading to a far bigger problem if I don’t watch what I say and where. I need my main character to blow up a building.

Not so easy for one man who, although he possesses the know how, is travelling from England to Antwerp in 1953. I assume he knows how to make a bomb because I don’t. Perhaps foolishly, I typed it into Google before I even thought about what such Internet activity might trigger. My sane and rational side says at the most my other searches might be looked at by some poor sod somewhere. My highly imaginative side envisages black helicopters, snipers at the neighbour’s attic windows and masked men abseiling down the chimney to arrest me at gunpoint. Please let it be coincidence that my Internet connection slowed right down after the fact. Please let it be that the entire North East only just logged on after the sun went down and volume of traffic is to blame.

What kind of world do we live in now where I find these things occurring to me whether by dint of imagination or not? I mean when my Facebook account browses my cookies and tries to sell me more of the things I already bought (surely self-defeating, Facebook if you think about it), should I not be slightly paranoid that everything I do is scrutinised if not by the authorities by marketeers? Will someone now try to sell me a bomb making kit via social media? I wouldn’t be surprised!

I’ve enlisted the help of a friend who knows about these things (in a licensed and responsible way) because I really am that irrationally concerned about who might get their hands on my search data and although it would all be a terrible misunderstanding, what would happen in the meantime? While it might in itself provide a plot of topical interest, I don’t especially want to be the main protagonist! And if they took a search to be indicative, what of the writing? Would they dig up my yard in case I really did kill Phil? Would they make sure my gas meter had never gone missing?

As far as I’m aware my Granddad, God rest him, never (intentionally) blew anything up. That is not how he came to inspire this story. It touches upon certain aspects of his life and I think he would really like where I’m taking it. That is if he were watching me as well. I wouldn’t be so nervy about that though!

Call me crazy, call me paranoid. My big bang theory is sometimes they really are watching you and there’s no telling what you might spark in the most innocent of circumstances these days. Now I’m about to make a phone call and if there’s a crackle on the line, I’m grabbing the cat and running!

One minute I was tired but couldn’t sleep, the next I’d written several thousand words and by some subliminal means become convinced I needed an X5 steam cleaner, an X-Hose and an Octaspring mattress. I switched the background TV off when Victoria Principal started trying to sell me something to put on my face. She does look pretty amazing for 63 so maybe I’ll regret that later. In thirty years or so.

I don’t clearly remember what I wrote. It was another one of those sessions of switch off conscious thought and let the story write itself. Of course it still has to use my fingers to tap out the words but when I come out of it, I feel as rested as if I’d been in a deep sleep. That makes me wonder if it is a sub-conscious thing altogether and while it goes on my conscious mind is indeed asleep. I know I killed people. I should probably hope I was here writing the whole time and not in fact in the throes of some psychotic break brought on by stress and an accidental overdose of pills. I’ll keep an eye on the local news just in case.

There was an entire sub-plot that I didn’t like which I think I completely deleted and replaced with something totally different. So I killed three minor characters there too. Well, they served no real purpose. I can remember writing their pitiful part in proceedings and remembering is never a good thing. Remembering means I had to try too hard to write it. Not remembering has its own inherent problems of course. I have a lot of reading back to do before I go on or I won’t know what’s going on in my own story. Might be pleasantly surprised or might be horrified. Although if it’s supposed to be horrific and it is, that’s a good thing, right?

The more I think about it, it has to be a sub-conscious thing. I didn’t so much as move except to type in all that time. I’m someone who always has to have a drink to hand, usually a cup of tea, and not only did I not take a sip but there was more than half a cup of stone cold lapsang souchong beside me when I stopped. Wasn’t aware of any aches and pains but it turns out my back is killing me and I didn’t notice. I was in effect not really here.

I’ve read about automatic writing as a means to contact the hereafter. To do it you must enter an altered state of consciousness. How different then is it from this? And if it isn’t any different, which of these is true: that people for hundreds of years have scribbled from their own sub-conscious believing it to be a spirit, or that I am not in fact writing this novel but am channeling the spirit of a writer?

Now I must make breakfast before my state of consciousness becomes easily defined as ‘un’.

For a limited time only. Today and tomorrow in fact (10th & 11th April 2013).

The brilliant J.D. Hughes has organised a free download extravaganza on his fantastic novel Northman.

To quote from my own review, Northman is a “tense supernatural thriller steeped in history with some interesting perspectives on life, existence and the meaning of it all.” Even time itself has no power over the Northman. “Hughes writes with intelligence, knowledge and skill to weave a tale that fills many shoes. Decide for yourself whether I mean fits many profiles or makes you that afraid.”

But don’t just take my word for it. Some bites (bytes?) of what others are saying about it:

“The ending is stunning, something I hadn’t predicted at all – isn’t it great when that happens?”

“A delightful work, and I could gladly read it again.”

“The prose reminds me of Ernest Hemingway, John Masters and other writers of the first half of the 20th century, while the explorations of life’s meanings brought to mind Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.”

“A scarily good thriller that deserves a place on your Kindle.”

“If you want to read a good thriller then this is for you! Loved it.”

Read J.D.’s blog about the giveaway or head on over to Amazon UK / US and get your copy. How else will you know how to watch out for and survive the Northman when he comes?!

Yes, he’s a fictional character and one of my own creation, so technically a figment of my imagination, but think he’s my new best friend.

I knew where I was taking things. I knew who would do what. I just didn’t know where the key point would fall. Now, William is a favourite of mine and I was reviewing his thread because I thought there needed to be more of him, and wouldn’t you know but he told me what to do.

Whatever I’ve done in my life, whichever field I was in at the time, I’ve always written. Only recently have I started to share what I write, but I think I’ve explored all of that in past posts. Never, in all the years I’ve spent scribbling away at one thing or another has a character ‘spoken’ to me like William Walker.

Maybe I’ve just never been quite so close to insane before. Maybe it took being broken right down in myself to come back with more clarity. Maybe it’s just time. Whatever the cause, I’m very glad of the effect.

Now, I can almost hear people saying I’m in reality thanking myself, because Walker only exists in my head. But I’m not so sure. When I’m writing, especially writing Walker, I’m quite apart from myself. I don’t know what’s coming next. I certainly don’t know what anyone will say next. I’m nothing but a conduit for the story and if I didn’t know better, I’d say William had tapped me on the shoulder and said “Look, here, this is where you hide the key.”

I’ve heard that other writers have these experiences sometimes and that makes me feel somewhat less inclined to call the doctor. In fact I’ll probably not mention it to him at all. I don’t want the phenomenon to go away. Walker is a good influence, quite clearly, and I’m oh so thankful because now I see the way clearly and nothing can stop me finally finishing this piece.

Inkredible was initially a Max Markham novel, but I think it just became a William Walker novel. And he’s an older guy. There’s room for a thousand prequels in his life and a couple of sequels before he retires. I’m so happy he gave me the answer!

My sleep pattern is as messed up as it gets so it really shouldn’t matter to me, but my body clock is still very confused. I seemed to remember being taught that it was something to do with agriculture so I typed into Google “why do we have BST?”. This article from the museum at Greenwich came up explaining it.

So basically, some guy named Willett a long time ago now liked to ride his horse early in the morning and didn’t like that people were still asleep. I bet those people didn’t much like his horse clip-copping by while they were trying to sleep either! It appears he was a builder and businessman; an employer who no doubt wanted his employees up and at it as early as him. Did he not overlook that when mornings are lighter, so are nights? And if everyone was up and working to earn money for him, did he not lose his treasured horse rides?

These days, though, with a 24/7 world and the whole planet lit up all the time, do we really need to change the clocks? Life doesn’t stop when the sun goes down anymore. In fact I’ve noticed when I’m up through the night that there’s only a gap of about two hours – those between 3 and 5 in the morning – when there’s no-one up and about. Otherwise, I see people online, I hear traffic on the roads and the railway is also only silent for those two hours.

I’ve heard it said that, come October when we fiddle with time again, it’s much safer because it means the lighter part of the day happens when people are heading out. So they were heading out anyway, light or dark and besides that, October shifts us back onto GMT where we moved it from in the first place. No-one relies on the cockcrow to wake up anymore. We all have alarm clocks, most of us on our mobile phones.

So does it still come down to agriculture? Does it still take from sunrise to sunset to bring in a field of harvest? We have huge armies of machines now that make short work of these things. And we have portable lighting. I ask because I’m not sure, being a townie with abnormal sleep patterns. We survived a hell of a long time without clocks never mind changing them backwards and forwards. We’ve since way surpassed the need to follow the sun, so can we not survive again without messing around with the measurement of time?

I suspect there’s no need for it; that it’s just another attempt by humanity to control their world and of course to make every last penny out of it.

Now all this has put me in just the perfect mindset to write all day. Or at least until the next overwhelming daylight sleeping time. Mr Willett would no doubt be appalled!

And a very geeky one too. Spent the time building a website and uploading a few short stories. Having done that, I added some more pages to this site and linked the respective pages to the download files. So imagine you’re on an aeroplane and some dolly bird is giving you the safety talk: To your right is a list of pages. Each page gives a taster of a short story. If you like the taster, to read more, click Download. A PDF file opens in a new tab or window, which you can save, print, transfer to your e-reader, make into a place mat for your cat or dog or indeed just read there and then.

I’ve also updated the Short Stories page to make things nice and tidy and consistent. If I could do my housework with a bit of html, I’d be so much happier but then I might lose the bloodthirsty streak and the will to channel my annoyance into writing.

There are some completely new stories there and some that had languished as snippets for far too long.

Killing Phil is brand spanking new, written, umm, the night before last and when told, the victim laughed. He should really be quite worried. That’s him on the cover and I’ve written eight pages about how he’s driving me crazy and I’m going to kill him and bury him under the back yard. But then, if you read it, you’ll see he does a lot of that. Laughing. It’s why I’m going to kill him.

I hope you find something you like among the new uploads. Leave your comments on the pages here or drop me a line. I love to hear what readers think. Even when you laugh when you’re not supposed to. I don’t know where (most of) you live so you don’t need worry that when I snap I make you part of the blood-fest.

There’s a new short trying to write itself in my head right now. It begins with the words “Go to Hell” and was inspired by my neighbour’s kid yesterday. The look on his little face as his mother said “You’ll do as you’re told!” set the typewriter in my brain away, so that’ll be getting an airing shortly, no doubt.

Inkredible is also clicking away in there and I hope to get a lot more written while this nocturnal pattern lasts. I don’t know what it says about me that I write and create so much better at night when all is dark and hidden. Well, I have my suspicions but I’ll keep them under my hat for now. It’s a nice hat. All bright colours. I made it myself one night.